Death of a Dream
by idle curiosity
Summary: Sometimes, dreams die.


_Thunk_

There was something soothing about the rhythm.

_Thunk_

He wasn't really aware of what he was doing, as he sat at Tia Dalma's table, staring at nothing. His mind was far away as his hand unconsciously threw his father's knife into the table, paused for a moment, and then pulled the blade out with a slight digging motion.

_Thunk_

Not so very long ago, his life was a bright and shining thing. Faint heart never won fair lady; his decision to try and save Jack from the hangman's noose made his own death imminent, and had shored up his courage and loosened his tongue.

"_Elizabeth. I should have told you every day from the moment I met you. I love you._"

He marveled at how he'd come away from it all with his life spared and his feelings returned. From that moment on, his days were filled with sunlight and laughter and love. He'd worked hard to finish his apprenticeship, and lay aside whatever coin he could to start their marriage together. He'd begun his courtship of Elizabeth in earnest, spending every free moment with her. He'd offered to teach her how to use a sword, a decision born out of a need to see her able to defend herself in the future. They'd spent long, sometimes passionate hours together as he taught her everything he knew. They'd made a game of seeing how often they could evade her chaperone, the stolen moments all the sweeter for being forbidden. She and her father had planned their wedding, and he'd just wanted to know where and when, and why couldn't it be sooner.

It was the happiest that he had ever been.

_Thunk_

Now, it was all wrong.

The arrival of Cutler Beckett, on the very day of their wedding, was the beginning blight on the landscape of their future. Their arrest and potential hanging, so soon after Elizabeth's kidnapping and his very public attempt to save Jack from the noose, were scandals that could not be recovered from should the charges ever be dropped and they be freed. Not even her father's position as Governor could fix this. At best, they would have to begin life anew somewhere else.

Jack's manipulation of his desperation to free Elizabeth was not completely unexpected. While he knew that Jack did nothing unless there was some sort of profit in it for him, he'd hoped that gratitude for his and Elizabeth's saving him from a hanging would mitigate that. And yet, Jack's betrayal of him to settle his own debt with Davy Jones was somehow still a shock.

He'd made a formidible enemy in Jones. He'd used Jones' own pride and arrogance against him to reveal the location of the key, stealing it from under his very nose, and escaping the ship of death. Unforgivable sins all, ones that now carried future consequences should he ever find himself under the Ferrier's thumb again.

He'd lost possession of the key, and with it the chance to free his father. He'd failed in his defense of the _Pearl_ against the kraken attack, although he'd bought them the valuable time needed to escape.

_Thunk_

And somewhere, somehow, in the space of those dark days, he'd lost Elizabeth.

It wasn't just the kiss itself that told him this. It was her hunger, her eagerness, her complete passionate involvement in it to the forgetting of all else, everyone else, him.

It was the guilty aggression in her response to his clipped query as to Jack's whereabouts. It was her devastated face, with its tracks of hot tears down dirty cheeks. It was her turning inward to her own misery, leaving him helpless as he watched her anguish, sitting in Tia Dalma's hut. It was her quiet acknowledgement "he was a good man" as she held her cup of grog, unable to drink to Jack's memory.

_Thunk_

He didn't know what to do. Leaving the knife buried in the table, he turned to Elizabeth, unsure of what he wanted to say, and found himself softening in the face of her grief. Even now, he could never stand to see her unhappy. He got to his feet and took a step towards her.

"If there was anything that could be done to bring him back," he told her. "Elizabeth …"

Whatever else he'd intended was lost to Tia Dalma's breathless interruption.

"Would you do it? Hmm? What would any of you do? Hmm?" she hummed. "Would you sail to de ends of de earth, and beyond, to fetch back witty Jack, and him precious _Pearl_?"

He found himself taken aback, and then found himself considering what she'd asked. Could he? _Would_ he?

There was the selfish part inside of him that immediately said no. In the face of Jack's monumental betrayal, he owed Jack nothing. He'd given enough, lost enough, he thought, as a trickle of blood from a reopened lash wound wended its way down his back. With the tricksy pirate dead, there was still a chance that he could salvage something of his relationship with Elizabeth. There was the possibility that, with time, he could get his life back.

And then he looked at all that was left of his hopes and dreams. What he'd had, what they'd had, was dead. If not dead, then it was dying, choked by the consequences of Cutler Beckett's not-so-provincial desires, Davy Jones' hatred, his own failures, and the shattering betrayals of Jack and Elizabeth. What they would have now would not be something wondrous, but a mere vestige of what once was. And he found that it would never be enough.

So he made his choice. With sure and steady hands, he reached out and uprooted from his heart the dying remnants of the life he'd come so close to having. He was ruthless, making sure that he pulled up every dream and every desire, casting them away.

Whatever his life would be from this moment on, it could never again be the bright and shining thing that it once was. But it wouldn't be this faded shadow either.

He listened to the others eagerly agree one by one, waiting, waiting for Elizabeth's response. At her soft "yes," his heart faltered once more. And then he made his decision.

"Aye."


End file.
